The Dark Side of the Cobalt Supply Chain
Cobalt Wars is one of the most interesting ARTE.tv documentaries I have seen recently. It looks at the supply chain of cobalt, a key ingredient in the batteries of our smartphones and electric cars, and the political, environmental and social challenges associated with that supply chain. (French with English subtitles, also available in German. Not available in all regions.)
Writing Skills: Cohesion and Coherence
Something that I, as a reviewer and editor, have unfortunately seen too often in academic manuscripts is a lack of cohesion and coherence. Cohesion is the glue that holds sentences together. Coherence makes sure ideas connect to create a clear “whole”. In this video, Write to the Top looks at the elements that create strong cohesion and coherence.
Critical Engaged SCM Research
The Journal of Supply Chain Management is doing an excellent job of stretching the boundaries of our discipline. I know from various conversations with colleagues that I am not the only fan of the journal. I would like to give an example of a very powerful recent JSCM paper: Touboulic, McCarthy, & Matthews (2020). It is entitled Re-Imagining Supply Chain Challenges Through Critical Engaged Research. The authors explore “how engaged research can support the development of the theory and practice of supply chain management (SCM) and present critical engaged research as an extended form of engaged research”. Check out the following video from the authors explaining their vision of critical engaged SCM research.
Video: Dancing the Supply Chain
JSCM talked to me about my new paper, entitled Dancing the Supply Chain: Toward Transformative Supply Chain Management:
The Supply Chain of Tomorrow
It is time for a new video! Future Insights Network’s CEO and Co-Founder, Maria P. Villablanca, recently talked to me about the supply chain of tomorrow. Enjoy watching the video…
What’s a Smartphone Made Of?
In this TED-Ed video, Kim Preshoff investigates the smartphone production: “As of 2018, there are around 2.5 billion smartphone users in the world. If we broke open all the newest phones and split them into their component parts, that would produce around 85,000 kg of gold, 875,000 of silver, and 40,000,000 of copper.” I really like the video, as it takes a supply chain perspective, and I can imagine to use it in my future SCM courses.
The Missing Link? EU Supply Chains after Brexit
The United Kingdom has been one of the key links in EU supply chains for more than 40 years. BBC Newsnight has recently reported on how Brexit could break that chain and what the consequences could be for manufacturers. I like the video and have used it for my Supply Chain Risk Management course to discuss this topic with my students.
Shifting from “Linear Thinking” towards “Circular Thinking”
Shifting from “company thinking” to “supply chain thinking” has successfully replaced the system managers had in mind when making their decisions. This shift has put some of the parts of what has formerly been considered the company’s unmanageable environment into their unit of analysis. A supply chain, however, is per definition linear. In the age of sustainability, we might thus need to go one step further and shift from “linear thinking” towards “circular thinking”. The circular economy (or closed-loop supply chain) could replace the linear system by a circular system in the minds of decision makers. This is illustrated in a video released by the European Commission.
How to Avoid Accidental Plagiarism
Today’s post is not about SCM research in specific, but about ethics and academic writing in general. We all know that, in the academic world, plagiarism is evil. I have used the following video to explain to my students what they can do to avoid accidental plagiarism in their theses.
Video Archive of Leading Logistics and SCM Scholars
It is certainly very insightful to read papers or books written by the leading scholars of our field. But wouldn’t it be even more interesting to watch videos with them talking about their careers, the development of our discipline and their personal contributions to this development? In the last couple of years, James Stock – who himself made a huge contribution to our discipline – conducted a series of interviews with leading logistics and SCM scholars. Both videos and transcripts of the interviews are available in his Video Archive of Leading Academic Business Scholars. This archive includes interviews conducted with Ken Ackerman, Daniel Wren, Bernard J. LaLonde, Donald J. Bowersox, James L. Heskett, Tom Speh, John T. Mentzer and John Langley. Sadly, some of these scholars have since passed away, but I am sure that their thoughts, as recorded in these interviews, will serve as a legacy for future generations of logistics and SCM scholars.
